“You can trust us, we’re the good guys—he’s a cop,” Semmi pleaded, as he pointed at Harry.
“I have a gun,” Harry whispered around the knife at his throat. “Back of my pants—take it…”
That clinched it for Reese. No one in the new world would readily give up a gun, even if they had a knife to their throat. Harry could have easily pulled it free without Reese noticing and turned the tables in an instant. The unshed tears that made Carla’s eyes glisten closed the deal for Reese.
With a sigh, he lowered the knife. Harry lurched forward into the arms of Carla and she immediately buried her face in the crook of his neck and burst into tears. Semmi put a hand on Harry’s back and gave Reese a grateful nod. Beads of sweat dotted his dark brow. “Thank you,” he rumbled.
Reese slumped against the wall by the front door, the knife in his hand aimed toward the floor, its weight an anchor that threatened to drag him to his knees. He watched the little family reunion with wary eyes and waited for their attack.
“I’m sorry…” he muttered and waved the knife in a dismissive gesture. “I thought…”
“Why were you following the Scavengers?” asked Harry as he pulled away from his daughter and rubbed at the red welt on his neck. “You wanna get yourself killed? There’s easier ways to off yourself, pal.”
“Yeah,” Carla said, as she wiped her eyes. “That’s either wicked brave or wicked stupid, your choice.”
Reese looked at the ceiling. “They have my friend.”
The three strangers looked at each other, then turned to Reese as one. “They do that?” Harry asked with a nod toward Reese’s shoulder.
“No, that was in the riot,” Reese said as he exhaled.
“Riot? What riot?” asked Semmi. “Hasn’t been a riot since Day Three…”
Reese shook his head and let himself slide down the wall till he sat on the floor. He let the knife fall from his numb fingers. It clanged off the hardwood floor, and he wiped at the sweat on his face. How had everything gone so wrong? “Not Boston…Ellsworth. Maine.”
“Maine?” parroted Carla. She narrowed her eyes at him and glanced at Reese askance. “Don’t sound much like a Mainer,” she commented, pronouncing it ‘Mane-ah.’
Reese shrugged his good shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I’m from Charleston.”
“South Carolina?” asked Semmi. Reese nodded.
Harry scoffed. “You’re a wicked long way from home.”
Reese rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “Country boy can survive,” he muttered.
“Where’d you and your friend run into the Scavengers?” asked Harry. He pulled a wireframe chair seat from the card table in the center of the tiled space and turned it around so he could sit and rest his arms on the back.
Reese kept his eyes closed. He was more tired than he’d ever been in his life. Apathy slipped into his soul. He still wanted to get home more than anything in the world, but he no longer had the strength to resist fatigue. The world had won the war of attrition.
“North. Last night we couldn’t drive any further…they carjacked us. Were gonna kill us but we escaped…they caught her—”
“Her?” asked Semmi.
“Your…wife?” asked Harry.
Reese opened his eyes. He glared at the trio of survivors. “My friend. My wife is in South Carolina, where I was trying to get when these…I don’t even know what to call them—they were all gang banger types, but some looked like skinheads…and there was a couple Mexican mafia type guys…”
Harry looked at the floor and sighed. “They call themselves the Scavengers. They’re the dregs of all the gangs that survived in Boston…they all got together after…well, after the waves. They’re takin’ over everything.”
“Most people who survived the waves lost someone to the Scavengers in the days since,” Semmi added in his deep voice. “They’re growing stronger every day as they scoop up people who want their protection. They’re a plague.”
“Well, they have my friend, and I have to save her,” Reese said, a bit of steel in his voice. Exhaustion or no exhaustion, he promised Jo he’d see her safely to South Carolina. He’d promised.
“You suicidal or something?” asked Carla.
“You already asked me that,” Reese mumbled.
Harry and Semmi watched him with narrowed eyes, as if to measure his response. Reese swallowed. “I want to see my wife and daughter back home. But I’ve lost too many friends already? I can’t lose her, too. I can’t.”
Harry and Semmi looked at each other, then the bigger man shrugged. Harry glanced at Reese and nodded to himself. “Well, I trust you—“
“Dad!” Carla blurted out. “What’s the matter with you?”
He raised a hand to stop her objection in its tracks. “I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character, after fifteen years on the force. I think you’re telling the truth. But my daughter,” he said, with a jerk of his thumb at Carla, “is also telling the truth. You go after the Scavengers, and you may as well put a gun in your mouth. Same difference and a lot less painful.”
Reese grimaced. “I have to try. Jo followed me from Cadillac Mountain…she patched me up after the fighting in Ellsworth…she helped me get over…over Ben.” He shook his head. “I don’t care if it costs me everything, I have to try. I wouldn’t be able to look my wife in the eye if I just walked away and abandoned Jo to those animals.”
Harry grinned, a wolfish, predatory smiled spread across his face. “Well, then…guess if you want to rescue your friend, you’d better come with us.”
“Where?” asked Reese. His fingers twitched toward the knife on the
